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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23614618">Interwoven</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/firefright/pseuds/firefright'>firefright</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alpha Dick Grayson, Alpha Slade Wilson, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canonical Character Death, Consent Issues, M/M, Omega Jason Todd, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Rating May Change, Soulmates</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 16:35:18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>15,912</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23614618</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/firefright/pseuds/firefright</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>No one ever said finding your soulmate was going to be easy, and on the day Dick meets Jason, he knows he's going to have a challenge on his hands. But through time and effort, they're able to get to know each other better, and maybe start to define what exactly it is they want to be through their bond. That is, until the next big complication comes along.</p><p>No one ever told Dick it was possible to have <i>two</i> soulmates, either.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dick Grayson/Jason Todd, Dick Grayson/Jason Todd/Slade Wilson, Dick Grayson/Slade Wilson</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>123</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>514</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>omega Jason Todd week 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hey all! So I'm posting this fic for the free day of the Omega Jason Todd week, and it's based off an idea I've always had to somehow combine omegaverse with a soulmate AU. It also gave me the opportunity to do another of my favourite things in fic, which is torturing Dick with angst.</p><p>I hope you all enjoy XD</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The first time Jason and Dick meet, it takes the combined efforts of both Bruce and Alfred to drag them back apart from one another. Not because mutually misplaced resentment or fears of being replaced drive them to fight, but because after just one brief whiff of each other’s scent across the room, they can’t stand to be anywhere else.</p><p>It’s soulmate compatibility. Bruce and Alfred realise that quickly, even if Dick and Jason don’t.</p><p>“He’s fourteen, Dick,” Bruce urgently hisses against his ear, once he’s got him pinned down. Dick can taste blood on his tongue from their fight, feel the pressure on his throat as Bruce grips it. “<em>Fourteen</em>. Get a hold of yourself.”</p><p>The words, as well as the heavy pull of Bruce’s scent overriding all his other senses, do what the violence and pin alone cannot. Dick gasps in horror, at what he and Jason almost certainly would have done had they been alone. “Bruce—”</p><p>“You need to leave.” Bruce doesn’t let up for an instant. He’s all alpha now, furious and implacable. “Get out of the manor. Get out of Gotham. Don’t come back.”</p><p>Dick’s eyes widen. Leave the manor? Gotham? This is his home, his <em>pack</em>, he can’t just… a whine breaks from his lips, echoed moments later by another across the room. “No. No, Alpha, please! Don’t make me…”</p><p>“Dick,” Bruce’s expression softens only marginally, “we’ll figure this out, I promise. But right now, I need you to trust me and do as you’re told. You can’t stay here.”</p><p>On some level, he knows Bruce is right. Initial reactions to soulmate scents are always intense, and if he and Jason stay in proximity to each other, sooner or later something is bound to happen, no matter how strong Dick tries to be. Distance is the only thing that’s going to calm them down. Distance, and time. But knowing and doing are two different things. Especially when he can still, even now, smell Jason.</p><p>Bruce must feel the tremor that runs through him, because the pressure against Dick’s throat lightens for a moment. “Alfred, please take Jason back to his room.”</p><p>“Of course, Master Bruce. Come along now, Jason.”</p><p>“Al, no! Please, I want to… he smells so good. Alfred, please, just let me…”</p><p>The door clicks shut behind them when they leave, and Dick shudders again as Bruce sighs and strokes his hair, doing his best to calm him down.</p><p>“It’ll be all right, Dick. I promise, it’ll be all right."</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>It turns out to be the correct choice in the end, sending him away. Dick feels his head slowly begin to clear as Bruce escorts him to the edge of Gotham, allowing resentment at not being able to take what instinct tells him is rightfully his to quickly give way to shame instead.</p><p>Bruce is right. While Jason might be old enough to cause that biological reaction in him (and react in kind), he’s still just a kid. Far too young for what they had been about to do there, and Dick knows for certain that if Bruce hadn’t intervened when he did, he wouldn’t have been able to live with the horror of it.</p><p>Neither would Jason, as it turns out.</p><p>They communicate with letters at first. It’s Alfred’s suggestion, based off old traditions. Letters take time to be sent and to be written. They have to be thought out, and carefully phrased to avoid the words within being taken the wrong way by the recipient. Which turns out to be very important when Dick receives his first one from Jason and finds it angry, defensive, and — when read between the lines — afraid.</p><p>
  <em>I’m not yours. I don’t care how good you smell, so don’t get any big ideas. Being your soulmate doesn’t mean I belong to you.</em>
</p><p>He’s right. Of course, he’s right. And Dick tells him that, writes back every assurance he can make that he doesn’t expect anything from Jason, and would never dream of taking anything he’s not willing to give either. He wants to get to know him properly first, before they go making any decisions along those lines. There’s more than one way to have a soulmate, after all.</p><p>But even so, that doesn’t stop him from bending his head down to the paper, and breathing in every hint of scent Jason’s fingers have left behind.</p><p>“I can’t believe you found your soulmate first,” Roy says of it, when Dick confesses the truth to him. “And that he’s four years younger than you. Oh wait, yes I can. That’s <em>exactly</em> the kind of drama you attract.”</p><p>“I think the fact he’s the kid Bruce brought in to replace me is the biggest drama.” Dick says tiredly, staring into the mouth of the bottle of beer he’s drinking.</p><p>Roy snorts, “You should sell the rights to Hollywood. It’d make an excellent movie.” Dick half-heartedly shoves him, but he’s undeterred. “Is he a redhead, at least?”</p><p>“I’m not just attracted to redheads, Roy.”</p><p>“So that’s a no.”</p><p>Dick rolls his eyes, before dropping his head down onto Roy’s shoulder. His friend smells like sandalwood and dry earth. “I just don’t want him to hate me, or be afraid of me, and I’m worried he already is.”</p><p>“Dick, I don’t think there’s a person on this earth who could ever hate you.” Roy nudges his nose against his hair. “By the sounds of it, you just gave each other a bad shock because of the suddenness and age difference between you. It happens.”</p><p>“I know.” It does, and Dick has heard far worse stories about soulmates meeting than what happened between him and Jason. Whether because no one was around to stop them, or more horrifyingly, because no one thought it right to. The laws of the world are sketchy in that regard. He just… “I wish he was a few years older, or I was younger.” Anything that would make this less awkward or difficult.</p><p>“Well, I’m glad you’re not a few years younger, else we probably wouldn’t be friends. But yeah, I get what you’re saying.” Roy hums for a moment. “I guess you just gotta be patient for now. Keep getting to know him. Then when he’s older, you can both decide what you want to happen from there.”</p><p>“You advising me to be patient, that’s hilarious.”</p><p>“Hey, I can be patient.” Roy nips his ear, “I’m an archer, remember?”</p><p>“Yeah, but you also go sniffing round every omega we meet in case they turn out to be<em> your</em> soulmate because you’re so determined to find them.” Dick elbows him back. “It’s disgusting.”</p><p>Roy laughs. “Speaking of which…” he makes a grab for Jason’s latest letter off Dick’s nightstand and sniffs it. “Damn, there goes my hope for a threeway.”</p><p>Dick snatches it back off him, then growling, takes one of the pillows from his bed and does his best to suffocate Roy with it.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>After the first month, the words in Jason’s letters start to soften. Perhaps because Dick makes a point not to talk about the most pressing matter between them. Instead, he tells Jason stories about what he’s doing with the Teen Titans, their missions and cases, his friends. In return, Jason starts to talk to him about Gotham, about school, about Batman and Robin. About <em>being</em> Robin, a subject Dick is a particular expert in.</p><p>He offers advice. As much as he can, anyway, while trying not to sound too overbearing about it. Jason’s early letters had made it clear he doesn’t appreciate being seen as weak, and Dick is loathe to piss him off again so soon. Not when they now seem to be building up a slow equilibrium between them.</p><p>Jason is dismissive at first, but then, a couple weeks later, he admits to having tried a couple of Dick’s tricks out on patrol, and a string of enthusiastic paragraphs about his success follow. It’s such a difference to the way he usually writes — bright, run on sentences instead of short, stabby statements — that Dick can’t help but grin the entire time reading them. Can’t help but run his thumb over the dried ink Jason’s fingers put to paper.</p><p>“You’re really trying to be good about this, aren’t you?” Donna says, when she spots him the next week with a copy of <em>Pride and Prejudice</em> in hand. He’s reading it because Jason told him it’s his favourite book, and though Dick has largely found the story difficult to engage with so far, he’s determined to make it through to the end.</p><p>“He’s my soulmate, Donna,” he says, pursing his lips at the page, “I have to.”</p><p>“No, you don’t.” She smiles, and puts her hand on his arm, squeezing it gently. “Which makes it even more important that you are. I always knew whoever you ended up with would be lucky to have you.”</p><p>It’s a pleasing statement, but Dick still can’t help but sigh. “I don’t know that we will end up together yet. He’s almost four years younger than me and I… I don’t know. I don’t want to take any of this for granted. I don’t want him to feel pressured. Heck, I don’t want to feel pressured. Just because some unknown force out there decided we’re compatible doesn’t mean we have to be together, right?”</p><p>“The Amazons certainly don’t believe so,” she agrees, “A lot of our stories are of soulmates whose relationships are platonic. Shield sisters, leaders and advisors, and so on. It’s only your world that seems obsessed with the idea that soulmate means <em>mates</em> in every sense. And that a soulmate pair is always an alpha and an omega.”</p><p>Dick chuckles, “That’s easy to say when you come from an island solely populated by omegas. Here, most matches you hear of are alpha and omega.”</p><p>“Yes,” Donna says, raising her eyebrows, “Those that you <em>hear</em> of.”</p><p>A serpent coils unpleasantly in Dick’s stomach. The world might be more progressive now than it once was, but he knows times are still rough for those who seek the company of their own designation over others. Even when that seeking out is pressed upon them by destiny, as it were. A lot of religious doctrines described such pairings as being punishment to all those involved. That they must be guilty of some deep inner sin to be matched so, instead of to their proper opposites. It’s rubbish, all of it, but the stigma runs so firm that even Bruce, for all his wealth and influence, still prefers to keep his dalliances with alpha partners on the down-low.</p><p>“Good point.” Dick says, reaching up to rub his nose awkwardly. “I probably could have phrased that better.”</p><p>“Don’t worry about it, boy blunder.” Donna pats his shoulder. “I know you mean well. Anyway, don’t worry about you and Jason. I’m sure you’ll be fine, whatever you end up being to each other.”</p><p>Dick snorts, but leans into her touch gratefully. “Thanks. Got any thoughtful commentary on nineteenth century omega literature you’d like to share with me, while you’re being generous?”</p><p>She reaches up and flicks his ear.</p><p>“Nope. For that, you’re on your own.”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Six months pass, and through them, Dick and Jason’s relationship changes and grows. Growing depth, growing confidence. Growing <em>trust</em>.</p><p>Dick sends Jason gifts for his birthday. Nothing too extravagant, just books off a list Raven recommends, as well as, cheekily, one of the cheap little action figures of himself that have started appearing in toy stores recently alongside the rest of the Titans, much to his delight. Thanks is given for the books, though of the action figure, Jason makes no mention. But that alone is enough to tell Dick all he needs to know. If Jason truly hated him sending it, he would have told him so directly.</p><p>And then he gets a photo. A single, glorious photo of Jason smiling awkwardly at the camera holder from one of the benches in the Manor’s gardens. He looks softer than Dick remembers. Either from their very, very brief meeting before, or the press photos he’s seen of him at Bruce’s side. Maybe it’s the oversized sweater he’s wearing, made of a pale green fabric, or the way he’s so obviously unguarded. Dick lets his eyes roam across the printed image of Jason’s face, taking in the dark curls of his hair (loose and tumbling), the particular blue shade of his eyes and the paleness of his skin, dotted with freckles he’s never had the opportunity to notice before.</p><p>Even without the heady aroma of scent, Dick finds himself drawn towards him. He wonders who’s behind the photo, whether it was a suggestion from Bruce or Alfred, or Jason’s own idea. The letter that accompanies it offers no explanation, and though he wants desperately to ask in his return missive, he doesn’t.</p><p>Instead, Dick slips the photo between the pages of the copy of <em>Pride and Prejudice</em> he now keeps beside his bed and thinks that perhaps tomorrow he’ll ask Bruce about finally getting Jason’s phone number. And then, not long after, another face to face meeting.</p><p>Only he doesn’t get the chance to, because the next day, Dick meets Deathstroke without either of them wearing scent blockers for the first time, and his world is turned on its head once more.</p><p>One second, Dick is bristling for a fight, the next, he’s crammed up against the wall with the older alpha’s tongue down his throat.</p><p>“Christ,” Slade laughs, dark, husky, and barely controlled, “All this time and it’s you. Some goody two-shoes crimefighter in a bad costume.”</p><p>Dick snarls back at him. He wants to rip and tear, rend Slade’s head from his shoulders. Yet at the same time, he also wants to kiss and fuck; torn between the pure, adrenaline-fuelled joy of the fight and an overwhelming wave of desire.</p><p>It’s different than it was with Jason. Far different, but no less intense for it.</p><p>Slade watches him struggle for a moment, clearly enjoying the sight before leaning in and biting hard at Dick’s jaw. “Yeah, kid. Me too.”</p><p>An hour later, they’re both bruised and bloodied. Dick has bite marks littering his shoulders and neck, as well as long scratches down his back and over his ribs. The room itself is in ruins, but that hardly matters next to how totally satisfied and relaxed he feels. At least until the afterglow wears off and he realises what it is he’s just done, and more importantly, who he’s done it with.</p><p>Instinct screams at him to go back as Dick tears himself away from Slade’s side, but he resists it, pressing his hands against his face in a desperate attempt to get some clarity back.</p><p>“Shit,” he whispers, “Shit, shit…”</p><p>“Easy there, kid,” Slade’s voice is a deep, calming rumble. “There’s no need to panic.”</p><p>“No need to panic?!” Dick exclaims, “You’re Deathstroke! You’re an assassin, a criminal! You can’t be…” He chokes, thinking of Jason. “You <em>can’t</em> be my soulmate.”</p><p>Slade snorts behind him. “A little late for denial now. You felt the connection as much as I did. Like it or not, we’re bound.”</p><p>“But we can’t be. You don’t understand. You don’t…”</p><p>“What don’t I understand, kid?”</p><p>Dick opens his mouth to tell him, then stops.</p><p>He <em>wants</em> to tell Slade about Jason. Of course he does. He wants to throw Jason’s existence at him like a weapon, the most potent kind of denial for what just happened between them. But as the seconds tick by and his initial shock starts to fade, he also starts to realise how doing so could be a very bad idea.</p><p>Slade is an assassin, a criminal. And as much as he has his own weird code of honour about it (and as much as Dick, perhaps, reluctantly likes him for that and other qualities he has) the fact remains that he is a killer. He may not take kindly to the news Dick has another soulmate, and Jason… Jason is only fifteen. Even if he does have Bruce there to protect him, Dick can’t risk putting him in the firing line of Slade’s attention. Not until he knows more about how this possibly could have happened.</p><p><em>Two soulmates</em>. Despite Roy’s joking about it when he first discovered Jason was his soulmate, Dick has only heard of such things in stories or vague, unproven rumours on the internet. He has so many questions and he can’t answer them here. Not with Slade.</p><p>“You just can’t be.” he finally finishes, wrapping his arms around his naked chest and shivering.</p><p>Slade sighs behind him. “Fine. Look, this little freak out of yours is cute and all, but I’ll be the first person to tell you you’re worrying over nothing. Being soulbound doesn’t mean we have to be joined at the hip from now on. If you’d rather we both just go back to living our own separate lives after this, that’s fine by me.”</p><p>Dick blinks. Somehow that’s the last thing he expected to hear. “Really?” he asks, cautiously looking back at Slade over his shoulder.</p><p>Slade shrugs. He’s comfortably reposed against the wall, showing absolutely no awkwardness or shame over his nakedness, and much to Dick’s consternation, he can also see that the scratch marks he left on Slade in turn are already starting to heal over, while his own still feel raw and new. “Sure. I’m not interested in press ganging anyone into spending time with me, even if I am admittedly a little interested in figuring out just what makes the universe think we’d be a good match.”</p><p>Dick snorts at that, shaking his head. “Hell if I know. We’re on completely opposite sides. You’ve even tried to kill me before. Kill my <em>friends</em>. It doesn’t make any sense. And I… I don’t even like other alphas.” A blush rises up in his cheeks as his eyes take in Slade’s muscles. “Not like that, anyway.”</p><p>Slade looks amused, like none of this is bothering him. “You seemed to like me plenty ten minutes ago.”</p><p>“That was different. The soulmate connection, it…” he shivers again, newly reminded by Slade’s words about the dried semen on his skin. They hadn’t… there’d been no penetration, much to the disappointment of his knot and the relief of… other areas, but they’d used hands and mouths aplenty before coming against each other. “Everything just felt so intense.”</p><p>And that intensity had needed an outlet, which swiftly turned into a mix of fighting and fucking.</p><p>“Maybe.” Slade reaches up to scratch his cheek, and Dick has to fight not to look lower. He smirks, “Guess we won’t know for sure until the honeymoon phase is over.”</p><p>“I really wouldn’t call it a ‘honeymoon phase’.” But Dick does feel slightly better knowing Slade has no intention of forcing him into anything he doesn’t want. Not past what instinct has already demanded of them, anyway.</p><p>Dick feels his skin crawl a little as he reaches for his shirt. This is what it would have been like if Bruce and Alfred hadn’t been there when he and Jason met for the first time, except probably a thousand times worse. So many stories talked of soulmates meeting in an explosion of passion that then gave way to love and eternal companionship, but Dick doesn’t think any of them ever took into context the reality of what it meant when that happened with someone you never would have slept with otherwise.</p><p>Whatever he feels for Slade right now, it’s definitely not love, but it’s also not hate either. He doesn’t know what it is.</p><p>“Leaving so soon?” Slade asks.</p><p>“I can’t stay here.” Dick says. “I can’t… I need to think about this, and I can’t do that properly when I’m around you. Distance will help.”</p><p>He knows that from experience, though he hopes Slade won’t pick up on it.</p><p>There’s a whisper of movement before he feels a broad hand land on his shoulder, lightly tracing one of the bites there before brushing over the back of his neck. The urge to lean back into the touch is so powerful, Dick can’t help but give in at least a little bit as his instincts once again try to convince him to return to Slade’s side.</p><p>“Seems to me like it’d be the opposite,” Slade says, grazing his fingers up to Dick’s ear, close to where his scent glands are. “Better to burn it all out while we can...”</p><p>Dick’s cock, only recently softened, starts to stiffen again with interest. He has to bite down on the inside of his cheek to stop a whine building, at the same time he clutches his shirt so tightly in his hands he actually hears the fabric creak.</p><p>If Slade tries to push him… if Slade...</p><p>“... but whatever makes you feel more comfortable, kid.” Dick blinks as the hand vanishes from his neck, then a moment later his pants are seemingly tossed out of nowhere into his lap. “I’m sure you’ll figure out where to find me if you change your mind about it.”</p><p>With effort, he manages to relax his grip on his shirt. “Slade…” he starts to say, then stops.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>Dick swallows, “Are you really… you don’t seem bothered about this. Any of it.”</p><p>Slade is quiet for a moment, then says, “I don’t like having decisions made for me. But I also don’t see any point in denying the facts either. Maybe I’d be more pissed off if it was someone else, but you’re hardly the worst person to end up bonded with, kid.”</p><p>Dick thinks that might have been meant as a compliment, but it’s delivered in such a backhanded way that he can’t be sure.</p><p>“Great,” he mutters, “Thanks.” Dick tugs his shirt over his head, wincing lightly when the fabric settles against sensitised skin, before looking back up just in time to catch a close up view of Slade’s well-toned ass as the man walks past him.</p><p><em>Fuck</em>.</p><p>“I’m going to take a shower,” Slade says, looking down at him in a way that makes Dick hold his pants tighter over his crotch. “I imagine you’ll be gone by the time I come out. Remember what I said, though. This doesn’t have to be anything you don’t want it to be. And if you change your mind, or just want to meet up to scratch an itch every so often…” he smirks down at him. “Well, I wouldn’t be opposed to that.”</p><p>No, Dick is damn sure he wouldn’t.</p><p>He waits, watching perhaps a little too closely as Slade saunters out of the ruined room, before hurriedly tugging on the rest of his clothes and fleeing.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Dick feels the tug in his soul to return to Slade like a physical leash over the course of the next few days. Constant, aching, and almost impossible to ignore. If it weren’t for his prior experience with Jason, Dick has no idea how on earth he’d be able to withstand the urge to immediately go crawling back to him.</p><p>But withstand it he does, after going back to his apartment — specifically away from Titans Tower — and shutting himself in to take what might be the longest and coldest shower of his life. Once he feels clean again, and more importantly, in control of himself, he then sends a quick message to the Titans, informing them he won’t be back for a few days due to a personal case that’s just come up.</p><p>It’s not a lie. Not really. He needs the time to himself to think all of this through, as well to let the bites Slade left on his neck and shoulders heal. Because, unlike with Jason, this is one soulmate discovery he’s not prepared to share with the team.</p><p>Opening up his personal laptop, Dick begins to search through every piece of information he can find on cases of people who have — or claim to have — multiple soulmates.</p><p>What he finds is not reassuring. Mostly because there doesn’t appear to be a lot of well-documented cases out there. Any claims also come with their own fair share of detractors, many of them based on so called ‘morality’. People who say those reporting the phenomena are either liars or just plain mistaken. That the idea of someone having multiple soulmates is just an excuse to justify the pursuit of unnatural relationships, like those who claim to have found their soulmate among their own designation.</p><p>Dick grits his teeth reading those posts. Not only are they not helpful, but they also serve to make his blood boil with the reminder of how bigoted and close-minded people can be. He’s reminded again of the conversation he had with Donna, about how rare it is to hear of a soulbond solely between alphas, or omegas, in their world. Not surprising, when this is what they have to deal with on a daily basis should they ever try to be public about their relationships.</p><p>And now he can count himself among them. Though he doubts he’s ever going to want to be public about anything to do with Slade.</p><p>Shutting the laptop, Dick leans back in his seat before rubbing his head. At the very least, it seems like he can say that he’s not alone in his experience of having multiple soulmates. Though short of going and tracking down some of the people in those posts, he’s not going to be getting anymore answers to his questions anytime soon.</p><p>It seems like he’s just going to have to learn to live with it. A prospect that is made easier by Slade’s promise not to try and force anything further between them should Dick not want it. Which he doesn’t. Not at all. No matter how many times thoughts of how attractive Slade is might enter his mind over the course of the next week.</p><p>He just needs to put it behind him. Move on and get back to normal with his life. As well as never, ever tell anyone else what happened. Not even Donna.</p><p>Or Jason.</p><p>Dick reflects upon that last decision with guilt. He and Jason aren’t in a relationship. He doesn’t know if they ever will be. But perhaps he should still be told that Dick has another soulmate, particularly one so dangerous as Slade. He just can’t bring himself to do it, though. It’s all so uncomfortable, every aspect of it. And anyway, what danger could it possibly have so long as Slade keeps his end of the bargain?</p><p>On second thought, maybe Dick will tell him. If not now then definitely at some point in the future. He doesn’t know how far he can trust Slade to keep his word, and the last thing he wants is for Jason — or anyone else — to learn the truth from anybody but himself.</p><p>In the meantime, he waits for the bites and scratch marks on his skin to heal, then heads back to the tower. He has cases to catch up with and a team to lead. Not to mention he also owes Jason another letter.</p><p>He refuses to let what happened with Slade get in the way of that anymore than it already has.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>With the aid of a few small white lies, Dick is able to successfully hide what happened from everyone else around him. And though he keeps a sharp ear and eye out for any sign of Slade over the course of the next few weeks, ultimately he sees and hears nothing from the mercenary, much to his relief. He still can’t quite bring himself to relax, though. Not completely. But then, he doesn’t think he’s ever been completely relaxed for years now. Growing up in the shadow of Batman just did that to a person, making paranoia second nature.</p><p>He goes on missions, deduces clues, writes letters, and wishes, idly, for the relative simplicity of the time before he knew Slade was his soulmate. When all he had to focus on was Jason, and figuring <em>them </em>out.</p><p>His birthday happens at the end of March, and just like the previous year, he celebrates it with the team rather than going home. They have a big party, which Dick is a little ashamed to admit he sleeps through the end of, but at least there’s cards and gifts aplenty. Both from his friends and his family—including Jason. It’s a CD collection of the music he likes, which tells Dick that as much as he’s been paying attention to Jason’s interests, Jason has also been paying attention to his too.</p><p>That or he’s been snooping in Dick’s room in the manor, the thought of which maybe makes him smile more than it should.</p><p>It isn’t until early April that the next unexpected thing happens. Dick gets a phone call.</p><p>He’s sitting in his room writing up a report when it happens, and answers the call on the third ring. Given that it’s his personal number and only a few people in the world have it, he doesn’t feel any concern about the casual way he says “Hey,Dick here.” into the receiver either.</p><p>Though in retrospect maybe he should have, because he in no way anticipates the voice on the other end.</p><p>“<em>Um, hey. Dick. It’s… uh, it’s Jason</em>.”</p><p>Dick immediately sits up straight, sending the papers that were in his lap scattering. “Jason?!” he exclaims, hardly daring to breathe.</p><p>“<em>Yeah</em>.”</p><p>He sounds different than Dick remembers from before. His voice is a little deeper, and hoarser. It makes the hairs on the back of Dick’s neck prickle, as well as his heart beat faster in his chest. “Wow, I uh… I didn’t know you were going to be calling. Are you… how are you?”</p><p>“<em>I’m not supposed to be</em>,” Jason answers bluntly, to his surprise, “<em>But I… I just wanted to talk to you. Properly. No more bullshit letters.</em>”</p><p>Dick can’t bring himself to pretend he isn’t pleased by that. “First teenage rebellion, huh?</p><p>“<em>Hardly</em>.”</p><p>Dick grins. “A guy after my own heart. So, what do you want to talk about?”</p><p>Jason doesn’t speak right away. Instead Dick can hear him shifting around, and he idly wonders where Jason is right now. His bedroom, maybe the library, or somewhere else in the manor out of sight from either Bruce or Alfred.</p><p>“<em>When you were Robin, did Bruce ever bench you?</em>”</p><p>Dick’s smile quickly fades. “Yeah, a couple times. Usually when I got hurt bad. It always sent him into some kind of crisis.”</p><p>“<em>Never any other reason?</em>”</p><p>“Not that I remember.” Dick leans back against the headboard of his bed.</p><p>“<em>How long did it last?</em>”</p><p>“As long as it took me to heal, normally.” He frowns. This is not the first real conversation he ever wanted to have with his soulmate. “Jason, what’s this about? Has Bruce benched you?”</p><p>There’s a telling silence before Jason sullenly admits, “<em>Maybe</em>.”</p><p>Dick purses his lips for a moment. “What happened?”</p><p>Another, even more telling silence follows.</p><p>“<em>I don’t want to talk about it</em>.”</p><p>“Jason…”</p><p>“<em>I messed up, bad, all right. That’s all you need to know</em>.” Jason’s voice thickens painfully. “<em>Now Bruce doesn’t trust me. Probably won’t ever again. And he definitely doesn’t want me to be Robin anymore</em>.”</p><p>“I’m sure that’s not true.” Dick says, in what he hopes is a soothing tone. “If you want, I can talk to him and—”</p><p>“<em>No</em>!” Jason says at once. “<em>No. I just… I just wanted to talk to you. You don’t have to do anything. It’s my problem, not yours</em>.”</p><p>A very alpha part of Dick wants to insist that of course it’s his problem. Any problem Jason has is his problem as well. But forcing himself to be more diplomatic, he instead answers with, “You can always talk to me, Jason. I’m your soulmate, even if we’re still figuring out what that means, exactly. I’m not going to judge you. Not for anything.”</p><p>Jason audibly swallows on the other end of the line. “<em>Dick</em>…”</p><p>“Yeah?”</p><p>“<em>Can I come stay with you?</em>”</p><p>Dick’s breath catches in his chest. Both out of surprise at the request but also his own reaction. He wants Jason to come here, badly. But at the same time…</p><p>“I’d love that, Jay. I really would. I’m not sure it would be a good idea, though.” Not least because he’s pretty sure Bruce won’t allow it, even with all the time that’s passed since they experienced that first, intensely overwhelming attraction to each other. “After last time...”</p><p>“<em>That was over a year ago, Dick</em>.” Jason must have been prepared for him to say that, because he immediately launches into a counter-argument. “<em>It’ll be different now. I looked it up, and everything I read says that after the first time, soulmate reaction isn’t anywhere near as powerful, especially with scent exposure over time, and—</em>”</p><p>“You looked it up?” Dick is unable to help smiling at the information.</p><p>He can almost hear Jason blushing on the other end. “<em>Only because I wanted to be prepared in case it happened again</em>.”</p><p>“It’s good that you did.” Dick agrees. “I wouldn’t want to risk hurting you, either. But you know that’s not the only reason it may not be a good idea. You’re fifteen, and Bruce is still your guardian. I don’t know if he’d agree to you coming here to stay with me yet.”</p><p>“<em>Bruce can go screw himself</em>.” Jason snaps, in a burst of aggression. “<em>He doesn’t want me here anymore, so if I leave I’ll just be solving a problem for him</em>.”</p><p>“Jason—”</p><p>“<em>I don’t care what some bit of paper says either, I don’t need his permission to do anything! Including coming to see you.</em>”</p><p>Dick heaves in a breath, while reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose in borderline frustration. Whatever happened between them really must be big if Jason’s this pissed off at Bruce. “You kind of do. If you come here without it and he finds out we could both get in a lot of trouble.”</p><p>Jason scoffs at the other end, “<em>Bruce isn’t going to do anything to you. You’re his favourite</em>.”</p><p>He blinks at that last detail. Considering the last time he spoke to Bruce properly was when he left Gotham, it doesn’t exactly ring true. Even before Jason arrived on the scene, their relationship had been… tense, and rife with arguments. Just one of the many reasons he’d left home to strike out on his own with the Titans. “I’m not so sure about that. Also, you don’t know how protective alphas can be over their pups. Especially Bruce. I don’t think he’d have any problems kicking my ass if he thought I was trying to keep you from him. No matter how angry he may seem right now about whatever happened, he still loves you, Jason. I guarantee it.”</p><p>“<em>That’s easy for <strong>you</strong> to say</em>.” Jason half-snarls, threatening to make Dick’s hackles rise up. “<em>Look, either you want me to come or you don’t, and if you don’t—</em>”</p><p>“It’s hard for me to say anything when you won’t even tell me what happened.” he bites back before he can help himself. “I just… Let me talk to Bruce first. I won’t say anything about you calling me. I won’t ask what happened between you guys, either. I’ll just ask if it’s okay for you to come visit Titans Tower and join the team for a while. He won’t object to that as much as you staying with me alone.”</p><p>“<em>But he will object.</em>” Jason replies sullenly.</p><p>“Probably, but I’m good at talking him round.”</p><p>“<em>What if he still says no?</em>”</p><p>“Then we’ll look at our options further from there. Just give me a chance to try and do this the right way first before you go running off. Okay, Jason?”</p><p>A rather overlong pause follows, before finally Jason sighs. “... <em>fine</em>.”</p><p>“Thank you.”</p><p>Jason doesn’t respond again for a moment. Dick can hear wood creaking in his ear across the phone, plus the awkward shuffling of footsteps. He wonders again where Jason is in the manor, to be producing such sounds.</p><p>Finally, he hears him suck on his teeth before saying, “<em>Sorry I called you just to complain</em>.”</p><p>The apology, quiet as it is, eases Dick’s shoulders back down a little. “It’s okay. I’m still really glad you did. And hey, it’s not too late to talk about something else if you want.”</p><p>“<em>Like what?</em>”</p><p>“I just finished reading <em>Jane Eyre</em>. I could give you my thoughts.”</p><p>“<em>Are they anything like your thoughts on the other Bronte novels I asked you to read?</em>”</p><p>Dick grins. “You’ll have to wait and find out. You have my full permission to tell me all the ways in which I’m wrong after I’m done, though.”</p><p>Jason lets out a snorting sound that’s half-a-laugh. “Fair enough.”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Unfortunately, as so often happens with the lives they lead, fate sees fit to throw a curveball in Dick’s plans. One minute he’s building up his courage to call Bruce, then the next the emergency alarms in the tower start blaring and he and the rest of the Titans are gearing up for action.</p><p>By the end of the day, he finds himself on a course for outer space, and barely has time to text Jason a quick apology alongside a promise to call him as soon as they’re back before he’s whisked away.</p><p>The whole thing takes two weeks to resolve, longer than any of them expected, and when he does return to Earth…</p><p>Dick almost kills Danny for his cold, detached opinion on the news, and it’s only the combined efforts of Kory, Donna and Raven that hold him off.</p><p><em>Jason is dead</em>. Jason is…</p><p>He goes home to Gotham alone, despite the concerns of his friends. First to visit the gravesite, where he kneels and stares in mournful, apologetic silence, then to Wayne Manor to speak to Bruce.</p><p>That encounter is anything but silent.</p><p>He leaves an hour later. Bruised, slightly bloodied, and even more furious and lost than when he arrived. Buried deep in his own grief, Bruce had been less than forthcoming with the answers to Dick’s questions. His demands for understanding of how and why this could have happened. As a result, they soon turned to accusations instead, wanting to know how Bruce could let this happen. Why didn’t he protect Jason better. <em>Teach</em> him better. Or let Dick do the same.</p><p>In retrospect, maybe he deserved at least the first punch Bruce threw at him. But seething and hurt as he is, Dick will never admit that to anyone. Not when he’d immediately reciprocated the action, and the only thing that stopped the bout from escalating into a true alpha challenge was Alfred’s intervention.</p><p>The old butler was also the only person to give Dick any real information on Jason’s death. That it happened because he went looking for his birth mother, only for the Joker to show up when he found her in Ethiopia and…</p><p>For a while, all Dick does is wander the streets of Gotham listlessly. He thinks about returning to the Titans or going to see Babs, but neither idea holds much water for him at the moment. He doesn’t want to hear the sympathy they’d have for him, or worse, the pity. To have both found and lost his soulmate at so young an age… it’s a tragedy. And that’s exactly how Dick would appear in their eyes right now: tragic. The young alpha superhero with everything going for him, who couldn’t even protect his soulmate.</p><p>If only he’d fought harder to spend more time with Jason instead of listening to Bruce. If only he hadn’t gone to space. If only the Joker—</p><p>There’s another, darker thought lurking in the back of his mind, spurred on whenever his rage overtakes his grief for a moment. Of going instead to Arkham Asylum, finding the Joker’s cell and giving the maniac the same treatment he gave Jason. He comes close to actually doing it once or twice too. Even going so far as to start walking in the direction of Arkham Island before catching himself.</p><p>He could.</p><p>He could…</p><p>Dick squeezes his hands into fists, his nails digging so deeply into his palms that it hurts. Then with stiff steps, turns back to where he parked his motorbike.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>“Kid,” Slade says, when he finds him, “what are you doing here?”</p><p>It takes Dick a moment to respond, groggy as he is from the impromptu nap he’d taken. He hadn’t meant to fall asleep here. Truly, he hadn’t. But after breaking into the one safehouse he knew belonged to Deathstroke in Gotham, and purposefully tripping every alarm he could along the way, he’d found himself suddenly overcome with exhaustion, like every ounce of stress and grief he’d felt since learning Jason’s death had all fallen in on him at once.</p><p>The bed hadn’t smelt much like Slade when he collapsed on it. Proof enough that it had been a long time since he’d stayed here last. What few dregs Dick had been able to pick up were enough to lull him into a false sense of security, though, and so he’d fallen asleep, drifting through the terribly dark space that lurked between nothingness and nightmares before the man himself finally came to wake him back up.</p><p>“Kid,” Slade’s voice prompts him to move again.</p><p>It hurts to sit up. The bruises from his fight with Bruce have had time to blossom fully as he slept, while the side of his face that received the initial blow has swollen. Dick grits his teeth against the pain, before putting his hand to his head to steady himself against the initial dizziness he feels while trying to remember exactly what his reasoning for coming here actually was.</p><p>Certainly, it hadn’t been to take a nap in Slade’s bed. That was just an unfortunate side-effect. What he’d really wanted, lost, mourning, and in desperate need of something to ground him from the furious pull of instinct, was…</p><p>“You told me I could come find you if I ever changed my mind.” Dick’s mouth tastes like cotton, his tongue spongey. “Or if I wanted to scratch an itch.”</p><p>The eyebrow above Slade’s remaining eye raises. He’s not wearing his armour, Dick now notices, which somehow doesn’t surprise him. Slade must have cameras in here, and the sight of an equally unarmed Nightwing in civilian getup sleeping on his bed probably didn’t strike him as a situation requiring Deathstroke. Instead, he’s dressed in what must count as casual clothing for him: a plain white shirt and blue jeans, neither of which do much to hide the powerful physique beneath them.</p><p>Dick would probably find that a more interesting observation, were his current situation not what it is.</p><p>“I did say that.” Slade acknowledges stoically, while waiting for him to go on.</p><p>Dick swallows, trying to work some moisture back into his throat. The longer he’s awake, the more it’s all starting to creep back in on him. The anger, the grief; the helpless inability to change anything that happened.</p><p>“Well, I want that now.” he says hoarsely. “I want to scratch an itch.”</p><p>He wants what he had with Slade that first time. The fight, the fuck. The blissful loss of higher thought in favour of seeking out pure sensation. He wants, even if just for an hour, to forget.</p><p>Slade’s eye roams over him, making Dick shiver. He can see the slight crinkle in Slade’s brow when he takes in his bruises, then his nose twitch as he scents him. Whatever he finds in it must displease him, because instead of reaching down to do what Dick wants, he shakes his head.</p><p>“What happened to you, kid?”</p><p>“Nothing.” Dick says at once, too quickly, and tries to take the initiative himself to drag Slade down to him. Only as soon as his hands make contact with Slade’s shirt, Slade is taking hold of them.</p><p>“I haven’t seen you since you and I found out we were soulmates.” he says. “Now you turn up at one of my safehouses, sleeping in my bed and reeking of distress with a giant bruise on your face. What’s going on?”</p><p>Dick didn’t expect this. Not from Slade. He thought, based on the words he’d given Dick the last time they were together, that Slade would be happy to pounce on him the moment an offer was made. It’s the entire reason he came here in the first place.</p><p>“Does it matter?” he responds, trying to push against the grip of Slade’s hands. He can smell him too, like woodsmoke and iron so close. Not as intense as the first time, but still a scent that calls deep into his soul. “I thought you wanted to fuck me.”</p><p>It’s no use. Slade’s fingers are like steel bands around his wrists, but Dick can also see the way his nostrils flare upon hearing the words.</p><p>“I do,” Slade rumbles. “But the last time we were together, you were in total denial about our connection. Now this. I’d appreciate an explanation, Grayson.”</p><p>An explanation is the last thing Dick wants to give. It would mean revealing everything he hid from Slade before, which is certain to piss him off.</p><p>Then again, that might not necessarily be a bad thing. He’d wanted a fight and a fuck, but just one would be better than nothing at all.</p><p>It doesn’t matter anyway, does it? Jason is <em>gone</em>. There’s no harm to him Slade can do anymore, if he is inclined to. Only Dick.</p><p>Except when he tries to confess, the words still slip sideways out of his mouth into something else. “I… I lost someone close to me, all right? And I just…” He swallows thickly. “I don’t want to think about it anymore. I don’t want...”</p><p>Slade’s head tilts slightly. His hair has grown out from its usual cut, and Dick wants very much to bury his hands in it and pull. Or have his own pulled. Just something. <em>Anything</em>.</p><p>Surging up against the hold again, he attempts to smash his lips against Slade’s, but that steel grip around his wrists doesn’t yield any, even with the explanation.</p><p>“Is that so?” Slade says, thoughtfully. “And you thought you’d use me as your distraction.”</p><p>Dick swallows thickly at the wording. “Didn’t think you’d mind.”</p><p>“Maybe I wouldn’t, if you in any way smelled like you actually wanted it.” Before Dick can react, he finds his wrists released and himself shoved down onto his back on the bed. “I’m not interested in helping you punish yourself, kid.”</p><p>“That’s not what I’m—”</p><p>“Bullshit it’s not.” Slade cuts him off before his half-hearted protest can get any further. “I’m not stupid, Grayson, so don’t try to treat me as if I am. I know what you hero types are like; you wear guilt on your sleeves like a habit, and when you feel like you’ve failed, self-flagellation is the first option you go to. If I fuck you, I want it to be because you want me to as well. No other reason.”</p><p>“But I did fail.” Dick’s voice comes out small, reedy and weak. “I did fail him. I failed…”</p><p>He trails off, biting his tongue down on Jason’s name.</p><p>It’s enough to earn him a hard look from Slade. A suspicious one, on top of everything else. Dick waits to be thrown out of the apartment, or for Slade himself to leave, now that he’s made clear what his boundaries are (surprisingly good and honourable). Only to his great surprise, neither of those things happen.</p><p>Instead, Slade sits down on the edge of the bed, and not looking away from him for a second, asks, “Who?”</p><p>Dick shakes his head, sickness twisting inside his gut. “I can’t tell you.”</p><p>“I’m your soulmate, kid. If not me, who else?” Slade tilts his head, causing white hair to brush against his cheek. “I know it wasn’t any of your Titans friends—I would have heard about those. Not that miserable bastard of a Bat back in Gotham, either. Whole world would be reacting if he went down. Could have been a civilian friend, I suppose, but somehow I don’t think you have many of them, if any at all. Too much to explain there when you get hurt or have to disappear off across the world. That doesn’t leave many other options.”</p><p>There’s something knowing in his gaze now, like Slade already thinks he’s figured Dick out, and maybe he has. At least in one aspect of it. Dick doesn’t know how much the news of Robin’s death has spread among the general populace, but he does have a hard time imagining the Joker staying quiet about accomplishing something so momentous. About finally sticking it to the Batman where it really hurt.</p><p>It’s a thought that makes the anger burn anew in his chest, and allows the words he’s been trying to hold in all this time to finally, callously, slip out.</p><p>“My soulmate.”</p><p>Dick doesn’t think he’s ever seen such an obvious look of confusion on Slade’s face before as he does in that moment.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“The person I lost,” Dick swallows. “He was my soulmate.”</p><p>“Kid,” Slade says slowly, as if he hadn’t already mentioned it just a minute ago. “<em>I’m</em> your soulmate.”</p><p>Dick shakes his head. “You’re one of them.”</p><p>A brief silence follows. Uncomfortable, weighty. Dick can’t look away from the sight of Slade’s face as he processes what he’s been told. The small twitches of micro-expressions underneath the attempted look of calm. More tellingly, his scent fluctuates too. Becoming heavier, darker, until Dick’s nose starts to burn with it and his skin crawl with the urge to either bare his teeth or expose his belly.</p><p>Maybe now. Maybe now he’ll—</p><p>Dick doesn’t get a chance to react before Slade’s hand is suddenly fisted in the collar of his shirt and his back slammed down against the mattress. A second later, Slade is leaning over him, and Dick can feel his heart beat a rapid tempo as he looks back up into clenched teeth and a single eye narrowed in warning.</p><p>“Explain what you just said to me,” Slade demands. “<em>Now.</em>”</p><p>Gulping, Dick wraps his hands around Slade’s wrists. “Is this part really necessary?”</p><p>“Until I can be sure you’ll actually give me an honest answer, yes.”</p><p>Dick grimaces. He supposes in the face of everything, he deserves that.</p><p>“I found out about him before I knew about you.” he eventually croaks out. “But he’s just a kid. Fourteen when we found out. Fifteen now. And when you and I had the reaction…” He closes his eyes tightly. “I was in shock! I didn’t understand it. Not just that it was you, but that I could have a… a second soulmate. I didn’t know it was even possible. I wanted to research it first. Understand it. Come to grips with it first myself before I…”</p><p>Slade’s fingers tighten their grip, and he shakes him. “Before you <em>what</em>?”</p><p>“Told you about him. Or him about you.”</p><p>“So he didn’t know about me either.” The waves of Slade’s scent are still angry, even if his voice remains level. “And did it not occur to you that if we were both your soulmates, we might be each other’s as well? That in such a case we each had a right to know regardless of how <em>you</em> felt about it?”</p><p>Dick’s cheeks burn at the words. “I was worried about what you might think about me having another soulmate, or him knowing about you, I… I didn’t know how you’d react. And he’s…” He pauses, taking a steadying breath for a moment. “He <em>was</em> still a kid. I was afraid you might—”</p><p>“Hurt him?” Slade finishes. Curiously, an element of exasperation now sits beside the resident anger in his voice. “God damn it, kid; you really do take after your Bat daddy sometimes, don’t you?”</p><p>True to form, those words are enough to spark anger back up inside Dick, over the guilt.</p><p>“And what reasons did you ever give me to think otherwise, huh?!” he snaps at Slade, opening his eyes again to meet that implacable gaze. “All the times you attacked me and my friends? When you tried to kill them, or sold us to the H.I.V.E.? Sent that psychopath Terra to infiltrate our ranks?!”</p><p>Slade glares down at him, growling lightly. “How about the time I respected your wish for us to stay apart, after finding out we were soulmates?”</p><p>“Not good enough, Slade.” Dick starts to push back at him in earnest, bunching his legs up against his chest. “One semi-decent act doesn’t make up for the rest of it!”</p><p>This time, Slade outright snarls. “If I’d truly wanted you or any of your friends dead at any point, boy, you would’ve been! I did what I had to do to satisfy the demands of the contract my son took and nothing more. Maybe if you’d ever get your head out of your ass over your silly, naive no-killing rule, you’d recognise that.”</p><p>“It’s not naive to value life!”</p><p>“Not even when that value gets your soulmate killed?!”</p><p>It feels like Slade just slid a knife between his ribs. Dick’s mouth snaps shut at once, and he turns his head to the side, suddenly unable to say another word.</p><p>Out of the corner of his eye, he can still see Slade watching him. However, when he speaks again, it’s with an oddly gentler tone. “He was Robin, wasn’t he? The second one. The one the Joker’s been bragging about.”</p><p>Still wordless, and with his eyes now stinging, Dick nods.</p><p>With a muttered curse, Slade releases his collar, before turning to sit on the edge of the bed. It takes Dick another second to emulate him, as he gingerly pushes himself up with his hands to lean back against the headboard. There’s a taste in his mouth like blood, and he belatedly realises he must have bitten the inside of his cheek while Slade had hold of him.</p><p>The way Slade broods is remarkably similar to some other serial brooders Dick’s known in his life, except he’s not nearly suicidal enough to want to point that out. All hunched shoulders, clenched jaw and furrowed brow. For a minute, he actually struggles with the urge to reach out to him, the same way he would a member of his pack. “Slade, I…”</p><p>“I would have stayed away from him, if you’d told me.” Slade says. “At least until he was older. I might be an unrepentant killer for hire, kid, but I still have some scruples.”</p><p>Dick twitches, pulling his knees up to his chest and wrapping his arms around them. “I just wanted to protect him.” he whispers. “It took so long for him to start trusting me after we almost… I wouldn’t have kept it a secret forever. I swear I wouldn’t have. Just until I was sure.”</p><p>“And how long would that have taken?” Slade turns his head back to him, eye narrowed. “You can reason it to yourself however you want, pup, but that doesn’t change what you did. Doesn’t change the fact he’s dead, either.”</p><p>“You don’t have to remind me of that.” Dick replies, bitterly. “I know what I did—I’m going to have to live with it for the rest of my life.”</p><p>“Yes, you are.”</p><p>He swallows thickly, both at the words and the acrid edge to Slade’s scent. The <em>And so am I </em>still clearly heard even if it does go unsaid.</p><p>“Do you want me to leave?” he asks, uneasily.</p><p>Slade appears to consider it for a moment before shaking his head. “No, I don’t. Even though I should.”</p><p>With a grunt he pushes himself back up to his feet from the bed. “You can stay here as long as you need to get over this. Somewhere no one else will think to look for you. But that’s where my generosity runs out, kid.”</p><p>Dick shifts to the edge of the bed after him. “Wait, you’re leaving?”</p><p>Slade turns back to him with a curled lip. “Yes. Because if I don’t, I’m going to end up getting into a fight with you. Something I wouldn’t mind under other circumstances, but since you’re still looking for me to punish you in some way for your misplaced guilt, I can’t allow that to happen. I’m not in the habit of giving the people I’m pissed at what they want, kid. Think of that the next time you try looking to me for absolution.”</p><p>“I didn’t—”</p><p>“You did.” Slade cuts him off curtly. “Scream, cry. Go beat up a few gangbangers or whatever you have to do to deal with your feelings about this, but do it without me.”</p><p>God damn it. Dick leans over his lap and puts his face in his hands. He’s lost one soulmate, now he’s doing a damn good job at alienating the other. “Slade, I’m sorry.”</p><p>“Apologies don’t mean much to me, kid. Only actions do. Maybe you should think about that too, while you’re here.”</p><p>Dick hears Slade walk to the door of the bedroom, then the sound of it shutting behind him. And despite how much the deep, animal part of him wants to, he can’t bring himself to cry out for him to stop anymore than he already has. Not that Slade would listen to him even if he did, he’s made that much clear already.</p><p>Twisting around, Dick lets himself fall back on the bed before dragging a pillow over his face.</p><p>It helps to soak up the tears.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Midweek update, because I have been slow at doing my proofreading and editing on this thing &gt;.&gt;;; Hope you all enjoy!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It takes Dick three days to work up the will to leave Slade’s apartment.</p><p>Three long days, in which he alternates between feeling everything fiercely and feeling nothing at all. Times when he screams and cries, and punches his knuckles bloody against the wall, or sits in silence, staring down at his empty hands or the bottom of a glass.</p><p>Slade’s kitchen is… was, well stocked, with food and drink. Bourbon isn’t his normal choice of beverage, but anything to numb the pain helps at this point.</p><p>So he drinks, and he cries, and he sleeps, until finally, on the morning of the third day, Dick drags himself into the bathroom long enough to catch a glimpse of his face in the mirror.</p><p>It feels like someone’s hit him in the teeth with the butt of a gun.</p><p>“What the hell are you doing, Grayson?” he mutters to himself, gripping the edges of the sink tight enough to make it creak. “You’re a goddamn mess right now, you know that?”</p><p>And he is. His jaw is heavy with a growth of stubble, his hair unkempt, and his skin sallow, even on the parts the great bruise Bruce left him with don’t cover. There are dark circles under his eyes, his lips are dry and cracked, and he… He doesn’t look like himself. Not at all. He doesn’t <em>feel</em> like himself anymore either, and it’s enough of a shock for him to realise that he can’t go on like this.</p><p>Jason is dead. Dick can’t change that. Slade is angry with him, and maybe he deserves that anger. But he’s still here. He still has responsibilities, <em>purpose</em>, a life to lead. No matter how much it might hurt, he can’t go on wallowing in his misery forever. He has to move on. Or at least try to.</p><p>Jason would want that for him, he thinks. Surely he would, and for a moment Dick conjures up an image of his soulmate scolding him for ever letting himself get to this state in the first place. It’s enough to make him smile, just a little, even as it brings with it a fresh wave of grief.</p><p>So slowly, systematically, Dick sets about cleaning himself up. First with a long, hot shower, then the use of the unopened razor and toothbrush he finds in the cabinet under the bathroom sink. It feels good to have his jaw smooth again, and get rid of the horrible gumminess in his mouth. The bruise, of course, he still can’t do much about, but after combing his hair in the bedroom, it’s enough that he actually starts to feel human again.</p><p>Walking back to the kitchen, he forces himself to choke down a couple energy bars, and then, feeling slightly guilty for the way he’d treated the place after Slade gave it him to calm down in, starts to clean up after himself. He washes the glasses and plates he’s used, and puts the bedding through the wash alongside his clothes. Dick doesn’t know if Slade is ever actually intending to come back here again now that he knows this safehouse is compromised, but still… It makes him feel better. Alleviates the shame inside him, just a bit.</p><p>Eventually, though, everything that can be cleaned has been cleaned. His clothes and the bedding are dry, and all that’s left is for Dick to do is make his way back out into the world. He turns his phone on before he goes, and sighs at the amount of texts, missed calls and voicemails that immediately flash onto the screen.</p><p>His friends are either very concerned about him, or extremely pissed. Probably a combination of both. And despite the trepidation of returning to them, the realisation does actually make him feel better, strengthening his resolve that even without Jason, he still has other things to live for.</p><p>He just wishes… He wishes he could have known what Jason’s answer would have been, had Dick ever been able to ask him the question that has been running through his head since the first day they discovered they were soulmates. Or no, maybe he doesn’t. Maybe knowing would have only made it worse in the end.</p><p>Stepping outside, Dick finds his bike — curiously for Gotham — exactly where he left it, starts the engine and climbs on.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Despite his resolve, moving on is far from simple. In the days and weeks that follow the Titans’ return to Earth, Dick buries himself in both his work and the companionship of his friends. It makes it easier not to think about Jason. About Slade. About the Joker, still alive and laughing it up in Arkham. And Bruce, who he hasn’t exchanged so much as a single word with since their last violent altercation.</p><p>There are still moments, though, quiet moments, where he’ll catch himself suddenly having to blink back tears out of nowhere, or swallow down a sudden thickness in his throat at the slightest reminder of his loss. Moments where the usually comforting press of people around him in the tower suddenly becomes suffocating, and he needs desperately to be alone.</p><p>It’s similar, and yet not, to how he felt after he lost his parents. Because, as it turns out, ten years of extra life experience really does nothing to make it easier to deal with the death of a loved one.</p><p>Especially when that loved one’s death was anything but natural.</p><p>Just how many more people in his life is Dick going to have to see hurt and murdered if he carries on down this path? Maybe it’s partially his own fault for deciding to be a crimefighter, and to be involved with others who do the same, but he still… All he wants to do is protect people. That’s all he’s ever wanted. Fight the good fight and stop the bad guys. Except the stark reality of it is that the good guys don’t always win the way stories say they’re supposed to, and sometimes the bad guys do get away with it in the end.</p><p>The Joker shouldn’t have got away with it, he thinks darkly. Impotently, for all he knows he’ll never be able to act on that vicious, violent urge inside him, no matter how angry he might get. He shouldn’t have, but he did.</p><p>Not since Tony Zucco has Dick ever felt so strong a desire to throw aside the values Bruce so carefully instilled in him.</p><p>“Dick?”</p><p>He looks up from his computer screen to see Donna standing in the doorway to his room, with Kory hovering behind her. Both women look nervous and concerned.</p><p>Immediately, Dick frowns with worry, wondering what might have happened now. It’s been at least a week since their last emergency. “Hey guys, what is it?”</p><p>They exchange a quick glance between them.</p><p>“Come with us, you need to see this.”</p><p>Donna leads the way to the main lounge area, while Kory walks beside him, her presence warm and reassuring as always. That is, until they enter the room to find the entirety of the rest of the team gathered there already, watching the big screen that takes up the majority of one wall with unrelenting intensity.</p><p>It’s turned to a news channel. A familiar one, and Dick’s stomach starts doing flip flops even before he’s close enough to read the headlines running across the bottom of the screen and hear what the newscaster is saying. Then, once he is close enough…</p><p><em>“.</em>..<em>shocking news out of Arkham Asylum tonight, as the notorious supervillain, The Joker, was found dead inside his maximum security cell only hours ago…”</em></p><p>A high-pitched ringing starts to run through Dick’s head, drowning out almost everything else.</p><p>
  <em>“While we don’t yet have exact details on the nature of his death, multiple sources have contacted GCN from within the asylum itself to say that Joker was found <strong>decapitated</strong>, in a display of violence shocking even for this city.”</em>
</p><p>The Joker, dead? Decapitated? No. No way, he can’t be…</p><p>“<em>Attempts to contact Police Commissioner Gordon for comment and updates on possible suspects for the murder have so far gone unanswered, but rest assured, we will be keeping you updated as further information comes out. In the meantime, reactions across the city are polarised, with many already starting to celebrate, and others sceptical this may be yet another ploy by the villain to...”</em></p><p>“Dick?”</p><p>Dick blinks rapidly, to find the whole room now staring at him. Kory’s hand is pressed supportively against his back.</p><p>“I…” He can feel himself sweating underneath his suit at their attention. Their expectation for him to react, or know what to do. Or… “I need to go. To Gotham.”</p><p>“Dick,” Donna frowns, “It’s okay. Just take a minute.”</p><p>“I need to talk to Bru—Batman. This is...”</p><p>“Do you want me to come with you?” Roy asks, hopping off one of the couches to move closer to him. “The last time you were there—”</p><p>“<em>No</em>.” Dick shakes his head violently, before taking in a deep breath to restrain himself. “No. No, it’s fine. I’m fine. Batman won’t take kindly to anyone else coming along. This is… fuck.”</p><p>He turns around, almost hitting the doorway in his haste to make it to the elevator and the garage below.</p><p>His friends aren’t ready to let him go so easily, though.</p><p>“Dick, we’re serious.” Donna says, following him alongside Kory and Roy. “You don’t have to do this. You don’t have to be involved. It’s okay if you want to just stay here and—”</p><p>“I do need to.” He hits the button to call the elevator, before turning to face them. “You guys don’t understand. If not for me, then Bruce. Alfred, Barbara… the city. If this is real… if he’s really dead, then…” He swallows thickly. “The ramifications are going to be huge.”</p><p>He’s lying through his teeth, and yet not. It’s true that the ramifications of the Joker dying will be huge, as all the territory and power he used to wield in the city suddenly goes up for grabs. True also, that the effect this is going to have on his family will be massive as well. But it’s the awful, gut-wrenching suspicion that settled in Dick’s stomach when he heard about the supposed method of the Joker’s death that’s really got him worried. The idea that not only might he know who did it, but he might also be in some way directly responsible as well.</p><p>(And perhaps, worst of all, how very much he wants to not feel bad about that.)</p><p>“We understand that, Dick.” Kory says, drifting closer to him. “But we’re your family as well, and we worry about you. We do not wish to see you get hurt again.”</p><p>A little late for that.</p><p>He manages to give her a bracing, if humourless smile. “I know, and I appreciate it. But this isn’t something I can stay away from. And not just because of… of what happened to Jason.”</p><p>Even now, it’s still not easy to say his name out loud.</p><p>“At least take an hour to absorb it first before you go running over there, dude.” Roy says, frowning.</p><p>Dick shakes his head. “The longer I wait, the more time Bruce has to put his walls up. I gotta go now.”</p><p>It’s as good an excuse as any.</p><p>Behind him, the elevator doors ping open and Dick takes a step back. “Just look after the team for me while I’m gone. I’ll let you guys know more about what’s happening as soon as I can.”</p><p>He doesn’t think he’s fooling them for a second, but there’s not much they can do about it without moving to physically stop him..</p><p>“I’m going to hold you to that, boy wonder.” Donna eventually sighs. “Don’t make me call you first.”</p><p>“I won’t.” he promises, before hitting the button to go down.</p><p>They no doubt know he’s lying about that, too.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>By some miracle, Bruce is in the Batcave when Dick gets there, entering with codes that still — despite his worst fears after that last argument they had — work.</p><p>“Is it true?” are the first words he blurts out, as he jumps off his bike and strides up to where his pack alpha is standing without even bothering to turn off the engine. “Is he really…?”</p><p>“Nightwing.”</p><p>The sound of his codename brings him up short. Hissing softly, Dick squeezes his hands into fists at his sides. “Bruce.”</p><p>His pointed use of Bruce’s real name in response causes a flicker to pass across his adopted father’s face. Then for him to turn back and look steadfastly at the computer.</p><p>Swallowing hard, Dick resumes stepping forward. “C’mon, talk to me. Please.”</p><p>“It’s him.” Bruce says, voice gravelly, after a moment. “I tested hair, blood and tissue. I tested them a hundred times over. It’s him. That, or a very good clone of him.”</p><p>It says something about the world they live in that the idea someone might have cloned and replaced the Joker in his cell isn’t an instantly dismissable one. Dick knows in his gut, though, that this time that’s not the case.</p><p>He turns his gaze to the computer screen. The Joker’s file is open there, with an image of the maniac’s face and the results of Bruce’s tests on the remains in another window to the side. Dick lets his eyes run over the words, trying and failing to absorb them.</p><p>“Is it true what the news said, about how he was found?”</p><p>Bruce nods, and Dick’s stomach twists anew.</p><p>“Do… do you have any suspects, yet?”</p><p>This time, there’s a distinct pause before Bruce answers him. In the cold glare from the computer, Dick can’t help but notice the new gauntness to his cheeks that he knows wasn’t there the last time he saw him. Not to mention, the days old stubble, and impressive weight beneath his eyes. He looks terrible, in a way that can’t just be because of what’s happened today.</p><p>“No suspects.” Bruce finally replies, “But whoever they are, they’re extremely good at what they do, and well armed. Joker’s head was severed with a single blow by something extremely sharp. Most likely a sword or axe. Based on the position of his body and facial expression, it was also fast. He had no time to react or put up a fight against whoever they were.”</p><p>He taps a button, now bringing up a map of Arkham Asylum.</p><p>“I scanned the entire crime scene to find evidence, but there’s nothing. No hair, no fingerprints, no D.N.A. The only thing I have been able to find is the route the killer took.” A red line suddenly appears through the schematics, trailing hallways and security gates. “Cameras along this path were expertly looped, and the doors unlocked without any alarms being set off. Not one of the guards saw anything, either.” Bruce takes a breath, “At least so far as they’ve been willing to tell anyone, anyway.”</p><p>Dick shifts uncomfortably, his suspicions ramping up. “Joker had a lot of enemies. A lot of people who will be happy to see him dead.”</p><p>The ‘us included’ part goes unsaid.</p><p>“Exactly.”</p><p>“Bruce,” he says, finally reaching out to him because, despite everything, he can’t not. Bruce’s bicep feels like stone beneath his fingers, and Dick wishes he wasn’t wearing scent blockers. “It’s okay to feel conflicted about this.” He bites his lip. “I know I am.”</p><p>Bruce somehow stiffens more under his grip, but doesn’t pull away. Dick can hear him breathing, see the rapid rise and fall of his chest as he thinks. As he processes, and ultimately fights to get the words out.</p><p>“I’ve thought about this day so much. More often, since…” Bruce trails off. “I always wondered which I’d feel more: relieved or disappointed. Relieved that he’s finally gone. Disappointed that it wasn’t me who did it.”</p><p>“You’re not the only one, Bruce.” Dick says softly.</p><p>“That doesn’t make it better, or right.” Bruce finally looks directly at him.</p><p>“No, it doesn’t,” Dick admits, “But it’s still true.”</p><p>“Dick,” Bruce looks far older than his years. Weaker and frailer. A far cry from the nigh invincible pack alpha a much younger Dick Grayson used to imagine him as, back before he was old enough to realise just how brittle the glue holding the Batman together could be. “The last time I saw you…”</p><p>Dick bites his lip. The younger version of himself might also have jumped in now, and told Bruce he doesn’t need to say what he’s about to say. Current him, though, only waits expectantly.</p><p>“I’m sorry.”</p><p>It feels a little like someone’s let the air out of a balloon trapped inside his chest, even as the rest of him continues to roil with guilt and suspicion. Dick leans in closer to his alpha, drawn in as if by a magnet. “Me too. I shouldn’t have said what I said. What happened to Jason, it… it wasn’t your fault.”</p><p>Bruce shakes his head. “I was cruel. I kept Jason’s death from you. I wanted to be selfish in my grief, but you and him… I keep thinking, if I hadn’t made you stay away from Gotham, maybe he’d still be here now.”</p><p>“You did what was right at the time.” Unable to resist any longer, Dick actually rests his weight against Bruce’s shoulder, seeking comfort like a pup. “For me and him.”</p><p>“Before he took off to his real mother, he wanted to go see you. He practically begged for it, and I—”</p><p>“I know.” Dick swallows when Bruce stares at him. “He called me. Said the same thing. I was going to ask you if it was okay the next morning, only then I ended up in space.”</p><p>Turning his head, he looks up at Bruce, and though the words taste hypocritical in his mouth, says, “We could play the blame game all night if we wanted to, but in the end the only one responsible for what happened to Jason is the Joker, B. And now he’s dead, too.”</p><p>It takes a moment, but then Bruce reluctantly nods. “I have to know who did it, Dick. And why. I won’t be able to rest until I do.”</p><p>That’s exactly what Dick feared Bruce would say. “I know.”</p><p>It’s why, when he’s done here, he knows exactly what he needs to do next. But until he has a definitive answer on his suspicion, he can’t tell Bruce that. He can’t bring up the other side of what fate had decided to grant him, alongside a lost omega.</p><p>Not because he thinks Bruce would blame him for it, but because Dick desperately needs to understand his own feelings on the truth, before bringing others into the mix.</p><p>“I’ll help you,” he says instead, “Whatever you need. Just tell me what you want me to do.”</p><p>Finally, he feels Bruce’s hand come to rest on his shoulder, at the same time as his head dips a little to scent Dick’s hair. It’s a motion that makes him feel like he really has come home again, not just to the manor, but to his pack.</p><p>“Thank you, chum.”</p><p>“No problem, B.”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Finding Slade Wilson is no easy task, even at the best of times. But it’s especially difficult when you’re trying to do it without the rest of your family finding out at the same time as helping them move forward in their own investigations. <em>And</em> when you’ve already burnt the one location in town where you were certain he’d come if you called.</p><p>For the next few days after returning to Gotham, Dick feels almost torn in two. He runs patrols through the city in Bruce’s stead, keeping an eye on citizens and criminals alike as both celebratory parties and newly sparked gang wars threaten to get out of hand on the streets, while also helping with tests in the Cave’s laboratory of anything and everything Bruce can possibly lay his hands on from the Joker’s cell. Then, in the quiet time where he’s not doing either of those things, and is left to his own devices, furtively scours the Batcomputer’s database and the dark web for any hint of Deathstroke.</p><p>In reality, Dick knows that he could probably just ask Joey if he’s heard from his father lately. Or if he was feeling even bolder than that, contact Adeline Kane. But both those options would lead to more questions than he’s rightly prepared to deal with right now, particularly with Joey. And anyway, there’s no guarantee that they’ll know where Slade is either. The last thing Dick wants to do right now is risk opening himself up for no reward.</p><p>William Wintergreen would be a better option, but he’s also in the wind. Not to mention, fiercely loyal to Slade in a way the others aren’t. Dick could try, but he doubts he’d get very far unless Slade specifically told Wintergreen himself to allow Dick to contact him.</p><p>So he waits, and he works, and he searches. Allowing himself to enjoy the comforts of being home again, Alfred’s meals and a new tentative peace with Bruce, until almost a week later, he finally gets a positive on his search results.</p><p>Dick doesn’t tell Bruce where he’s going, or even that he’s leaving at all. Just gets on his bike and heads out, driving roughly forty minutes south to Gotham’s sister city of Blüdhaven.</p><p>He’s only been here once before, back when he was Robin and a perp he and Batman were chasing tried fleeing in this direction. It’s an old whaling town, one that went down the pits when first the supply of whales dried up, then the industry it was built on itself became completely illegal. Crime rates are sky-high, and poverty is widespread. Not quite to Gotham’s level, of course, but then few places are.</p><p>It makes him a little sad, as he drives through the streets, that he and Bruce could never make time to come here more. This city needs a protector just as much as any other, but between Gotham and his duties with the Justice League, Batman’s wings have never been able to stretch quite far enough.</p><p>Finding what he thinks is a relatively safe space, Dick stashes his bike, arms its defences, then takes to the rooftops.</p><p>In truth, he’s not sure where he’s going, or what he’s looking for. For all he knows, he could just be chasing a red herring. ‘Deathstroke’ and ‘Blüdhaven’ weren’t much to go on by themselves, after all, but Dick was raised to follow his instincts. Slade has to know in which direction Dick’s thoughts would have run after the news broke, and for an alert to pop up now, so close to Gotham…</p><p>There are no coincidences with such things. He learned that growing up, too.</p><p>Dick spends a couple hours wandering the city, stopping three muggings, an attempted assault and a low-level drug deal along the way, before pausing to take a break in the shadow of a giant billboard. Like a lot of other things in Blüdhaven, it’s aged and peeling, advertising a movie that already came out months ago.</p><p>“Hey, kid.”</p><p>Dick’s breath doesn’t quite catch in his chest, but it comes close. “Slade.”</p><p>He turns to look back behind him, and there, leant against one of the rusted struts holding the billboard up, is the man himself. Unlike the last time they met, Slade is in his armour, sans the mask, and it surprises Dick that he feels a slight pang at not getting to see him in civilian clothing again. Maybe because this whole encounter would feel so much safer, if he was.</p><p>“You’re looking well.” Slade tilts his head, then meaningfully adds, “Better than the last time I saw you, at any rate.”</p><p>Finding his throat suddenly very dry, Dick swallows, before reflexively trying to scent the air. He curses himself when all he gets for it is the damp smell of pollution from the street below, because of course Slade is wearing blockers now.</p><p>“Was it you?”</p><p>He doesn’t mean to just blurt the question out like that, but blurt it out he does.</p><p>Far from being offended, though, Slade just looks amused. “Getting straight to the point, hm?”</p><p>“Slade, please, don’t mess me around on this.” Dick clenches his hands into fists at his sides. “Was it you, yes or no?”</p><p>Loosening his arms from where they’re folded across his chest, Slade abandons his casual stance against the support strut to walk forwards towards him. It’s not quite a predatory motion, but still, Dick has to fight the urge to step back.</p><p>“That clown took something from me,” Slade says, once he’s in front of him, looming over Dick in more ways than one. “From both of us. Did you really think I’d just let that go?”</p><p>It’s not the yes or no answer he was asking for, but it’s as good as.</p><p>“I…”</p><p>In truth, Dick hadn’t thought about it. He’d been so wrapped in <em>his</em> grief, <em>his</em> anger, and Slade’s anger at him in the wake of Jason’s death, he hadn’t even considered what else the other alpha might have taken away from their meeting. Or what he might choose to do about it. Not until it was already too late.</p><p>Dick wonders now if he would have even said anything about it back then, if he had.</p><p>“That doesn’t make it right.”</p><p>“Doesn’t it?” Slade’s close enough to box him in, even though the only thing at Dick’s back is open air. “Your soulmate. Your omega. Maybe mine also. There are rules about these things, kid, if not laws.”</p><p>“Jason wasn’t my omega,” Dick protests, keeping his chin lifted, and his eyes meeting Slade’s, “Not in that way.”</p><p>“He was close enough.”</p><p>“You really killed the Joker for an unproven hypothesis?”</p><p>“No,” This time Slade growls his response. “I killed him because he took away the opportunity for me to ever know for sure. Because he stole a choice that should have been <em>mine</em> to make.” His eye narrows, focusing in on Dick’s. “You remember what I told you before.”</p><p><em>I don’t like having choices made for me. But I also don’t see any point in denying the facts either.</em> Yes, he remembers.</p><p>“You can’t tell me you’re sad the freak is dead.”</p><p>“Of course I’m not.” Dick says, finally having to turn his head away. “After I learned about Jason, I almost…”</p><p>“Thought about doing it yourself?”</p><p>A little more than thinking about it. At one point, Dick had actually come within spitting distance of Arkham’s front gate. “Yes. But I didn’t. I couldn’t.”</p><p>“That’s because you’re not a killer, kid.” He jolts a little when the rough pads of Slade’s gloved fingers catch his chin, forcing Dick to look back at him again. “Even though you’d be a damn fine one if you could ever get past that annoyingly sensitive conscience of yours. That’s why I stepped in.”</p><p>Dick’s teeth find his bottom lip and dig in. “You already told me you did this for your own selfish reasons. Don’t try and make it sound like you did it for me now.”</p><p>Slade’s expression, so serious a moment before, now lightens with amusement. “Can’t it be both?”</p><p><em>No</em>. “The last time I saw you, you were—”</p><p>“Angry with you?” Slade cuts him off, and Dick grinds his teeth in annoyance at it. “Yes, I was. For hiding you had another soulmate from me, and trying to use me to punish yourself.”</p><p>“What about now?” he asks, because he has to, even though the dutiful side of his brain tells him to stay focused on the parts that are relevant to the murder case he’s supposed to be investigating.</p><p>Slade’s fingers move from his chin along his jaw. “It’s been two months since then.”</p><p>He says that like it’s all the explanation that’s needed. To him, it probably is. Dick doesn’t settle so easily, though.</p><p>“Meaning what?” he presses, while wondering why he’s not doing more to move away from that touch.</p><p>Slade sighs, like Dick’s being the difficult one here and not him. “<em>Meaning</em>, I had time to think about what you said, and you may not have been entirely wrong about the fact I hadn’t given you much reason to trust me in regards to the boy before. As for the other part, I’ll chalk it up to your chronic inability to not to take the weight of the world on your shoulders at every opportunity, rather than a personal insult.”</p><p>“Wow,” Dick says, and he honestly doesn’t know if he’s laughing or choking. “That was… Good to know that even when you’re trying to be nice you’re still kind of an asshole.”</p><p>“It’s part of my charm, kid.”</p><p>Dick shakes his head almost violently. “I can’t condone killing. I can’t, not for anyone.”</p><p>“You don’t have to condone it,” Slade’s voice hardens again, “Just accept it. The Joker got what he deserved. If I hadn’t done it, someone else would have sooner or later.”</p><p>Dick surprises himself with his next words. “Did he know why?”</p><p>Slade raises an eyebrow questioningly.</p><p>“Did he know why you killed him.”</p><p>The hand on Dick’s jaw is joined by one on his hip, and there’s the disconcerting glimmer of something like approval in Slade’s eye, even as he says, “No. I had no intention giving him time to talk or gloat about what he’d done. But I did make sure he saw it was me who did it. That he knew he was dying alone and without spectacle in his cell.”</p><p>Dick refuses to name one of the feelings churning in his stomach as disappointment, or the other as satisfaction, knowing that the Joker died in a way he would have hated. “Why did you wait so long to do it?”</p><p>“Revenge is a dish best served cold, isn’t that what they say?”</p><p>Another, unexpected, almost hysterical laugh threatens to work its way out of Dick’s throat. “There’s no way you watch Star Trek.”</p><p>“There’s a lot of things you don’t know about me, kid. And that proverb is a lot older than some TV show.” Slade leans in closer to him, his nose working even though Dick’s wearing scent-blockers just the same as he is, and there’s no possible way he can be picking anything up. Regardless, Slade’s height, his presence… it’s still doing things to him. Sending hot prickles racing down his spine.</p><p>Finally managing to move, Dick lifts a hand to Slade’s chest, forcing him to keep at least some distance between them.</p><p>“I should take you in,” he says, “I’m supposed to take you in.”</p><p>Slade huffs a laugh.” Kid, you and the Bat have both failed to take me in for killing people a lot less deserving than the Joker before now. You really going to make this one the hill you die on?”</p><p>Dick bites his lip. The war between what his heart wants and what his head tells him is right has never been stronger. “Bruce isn’t going to stop until he knows who did it.”</p><p>“So tell him.” Slade’s fingers stroke his hip, while his other hand inches still higher to Dick’s ear, coming closer and closer to a certain spot that makes Dick’s breath catch. He sounds like he knows he’s already won, and Dick <em>hates</em> that. “Or if you’re still too ashamed to reveal our connection, tell him it was a contract I took.”</p><p>“I’m not ashamed!” Dick snaps back at him, “I’m just…”</p><p>He thinks tiredly, of dealing with Bruce in the wake of such a thing. Of telling him at least one of his sons is definitely bonded to Deathstroke. Then further, what his friends' reactions would be. There’d be judgement, confusion, a lack of understanding of something Dick honestly has yet to understand himself.</p><p>He breathes in, “This. Us. It’s mine and your business, no one else’s.”</p><p>“True enough.” Again, there’s that gleam of approval in Slade’s expression. “I don’t care either way.”</p><p>Dick’s not so sure about that, given the way Slade framed it, but he’s not up to discussing that right now. Not when there are more important things to talk about.</p><p>Not when he knows he’s currently balancing on the edge of a very dangerous precipice.</p><p>“Whichever version I tell him, he’ll come after you.”</p><p>This time, Slade’s amusement is obvious. “Let him, I could use the exercise.”</p><p>“<em>Slade</em>,” Dick lifts his chin, glaring at him harder through his mask.</p><p>Unashamed, Slade continues to grin. “Don’t worry, I won’t kill him. For you.”</p><p>“If that’s meant to comfort me, you’re doing a piss poor job at it.”</p><p>“For someone so young, you really are neurotic.” Slade’s index finger flicks up, catching Dick’s ear and the sensitive gland behind it.</p><p>The sensation causes Dick to jerk in his grasp, and have to strangle a whine behind his teeth, but when he looks up at Slade again, it’s to find the older alpha’s expression unexpectedly serious again.</p><p>“I mean it, kid, this is some real advice. You got your answers; the Joker’s dead, and that’s not your fault anymore than Todd’s death was. You’re not responsible for the actions of other people, so for once in your life, do the smart thing. Accept what happened and let this go. I’m not going to go to prison for doing what was right. More importantly, I don’t think you actually want me to, even if you were capable of making it happen.”</p><p>Is this why the universe decided they’d be a good match, Dick wonders. Because Slade can see right through him and what he’s feeling better than anyone else? That, or he’s been broadcasting more than he thinks. He always has when it comes to matters involving Jason.</p><p>Can he let this go? Can he really? He wants to. God he does. The Joker… the Joker was a monster. He’s killed dozens, hundreds. He killed <em>Jason</em>, Dick’s soulmate. A fifteen year old omega kid who’d just wanted to find his mother. Find connection and understanding, because at home…</p><p>At home, all of them had let him down.</p><p>“I really fucking hate you.” Dick whispers, in both surrender and acknowledgement. <em>I hate myself</em>.</p><p>Slade eyes him evenly for a moment, then nods. “I know.”</p><p>The kiss he sees coming from a mile away, yet doesn’t do anything more to stop it than bite down on Slade’s lip the moment after their mouths have already met. An action which only seems to incentivise Slade, as he growls deeply, moving both hands to lift Dick by the waist — as easily as if he weighed nothing — and swing him back deeper into the shadows beneath the billboard. Dick groans, releasing the bite when his back hits the same support strut Slade was leaning against earlier, and Slade wastes no time in seizing the opportunity to thrust his tongue deep into his mouth.</p><p>It’s the first time Dick’s kissed him since they found out they were soulmates. The first time he’s felt him, since Slade refused to indulge his self-destructive tendencies two months ago. And despite everything Dick has come to believe about time and distance curbing the need for intimacy along such a bond before now, it doesn’t take much more than that for him to get swept up with desire again.</p><p>Plunging his hands into Slade’s hair, Dick tugs harshly on the white strands. The emotion sweeping through him is passion and need, but also anger and aggression. He doesn’t just want to fuck Slade, he wants to <em>fight</em> him. To not feel anything but the elation that comes with it, the same as he did before.</p><p>No worries, no guilt. Just—</p><p>As if reading Dick’s mind, Slade breaks the kiss between them, sparing a second only to lick across his mouth before tilting his head and sinking his teeth into his neck. Dick yelps at first, then moans, and before he knows it his fingers are scrabbling down out of Slade’s hair, seeking to find where the neutraliser strips over his scent glands are and remove them.</p><p>Slade snarls when he does it, at the pressure the motion entails against sensitive skin. A moment later, he’s returning the favour, all while continuing to maul Dick’s neck with his teeth before, breathily, saying, “I have a hotel room.”</p><p>It’s an offer and a suggestion both. Dick trembles at the idea, wanting it, yet also afraid that if they break for the time it will take to get there, he’ll start to second guess himself and lose his nerve for this against the heavy responsibilities he still has waiting for him back home. He can’t even speak for the fear of it, so much so that instead he just buries his face as much as he can against the side of Slade’s head, breathing in the heavy wafts of woodsmoke, iron and gunpowder now starting to emanate from his skin. The motion tells Slade everything he needs to know about what he’s feeling, and the older alpha hums quietly before nodding and drawing one of Dick’s legs up around his waist.</p><p>“Sure, kid. Whatever you want.”</p><p>His teeth return to Dick’s neck, sucking lurid bruises into his skin Dick knows he’ll come to regret later, before finding the catches to his suit and starting to undo them.</p><p>“Whatever you want.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>
  <a href="http://firefrightfic.tumblr.com">My tumblr!</a>
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